


Who Keeps Your Flame

by FearNoEvil



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Arguing with Death, F/M, Family, Gen, Romance, Supernatural Elements, Versions of History and Historical Record, Whimsical Magic and Such, legacy, literal metaphors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-14 03:20:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7150970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FearNoEvil/pseuds/FearNoEvil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On Eliza's wedding day, a mysterious woman comes to call, bringing with her strange tales of deals struck with Death himself, and new responsibility for the young bride - to tend the flame taken from Alexander's soul.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

A strange woman was lurking in the doorway of the Schuyler Mansion.  The wedding party had recently entered its second hour, and the bride, who fancied herself the happiest woman in the world, and this the happiest day of her life, was the first to notice her. 

The woman in the door might have struck a foreboding figure to anyone in a less euphoric state of mind, casting a long shadow like the slighted witch in a fairy tale come to curse a child at a christening.  She wore a long brown robe, almost like a monk, and her hair – prematurely grey-flecked, it seemed, since she wasn’t very old – was worn wild and loose.  But in Eliza’s innocent bliss she fairly glided across the room past her dancing and laughing relatives to go to the door and greet her.

“Welcome!” she said cheerfully.  “I don’t believe I know you! Are you a friend of Alexander’s?  Or a distant relative of mine – whom I’ve neglected to remember as I ought?”

“You’re the bride, are you?” asked the woman.

Positively beaming, Eliza replied, “I have the pleasure to introduce myself as Mrs. Eliza Hamilton,” and gave the woman a gracious curtsy.  “And you, ma’am?”

“Ann,” she replied, neglecting a surname entirely.  “Your husband is my little cousin.”

“A cousin!  How wonderful!  Do come in and say hello, then!  My husband doesn’t have any other family here!  Alexander, darling!  Look who’s here to see –”

She glanced about her to try and locate her new husband through the crowd.  Alexander was standing beside the staircase with her father, one hand reaching up to grip his shoulder, the other clenched into a fist on his chest like he was making a solemn vow.  She couldn’t hear what he was saying over the buzz of the crowd, but from his earnest expression, her father’s mildly amused one, and a trifling skill at lip-reading, she made it out to be something like “And as long as I _live_ , sir, I swear to you that your daughter shall want for nothing!”

“I’m afraid,” said the woman, Ann, drawing her attention back, “I’m not here for the party.  In fact, it’s probably better your husband never knows I was here.”

“What?” For the first time, Eliza’s smile faded.  “N-no, you must!  He was _ever_ so disappointed when his father and brother couldn’t come!  It shall mean so much to him, to know that you care!”

Ann gave a knowing smile.  “You’re a sweet girl, and I well believe you mean to do right by your husband.  That is why I am here – for you.  I came to give you something.”

“A – gift?”

“More of a responsibility,” corrected Ann.  “By the vow you’ve made today, Alexander’s life is now in your keeping.  It follows that I’ve come to relinquish to you the last part of that responsibility I still hold.”

“I don’t . . . quite . . .” began Eliza, but was struck suddenly dumb when next second, the woman reached out her hand and a hovering flame sparked into life in her palm.

“Listen very carefully, Mrs. Hamilton,” said Ann, taking her by the arm and drawing her outside the door, pulling her closer to hear her soft voice. “Your husband does not know to whom he is indebted for even living to see his wedding-day.  When he twelve years old, Death nearly claimed him, as it had just claimed his mother.”

“He was spared by the grace of God,” said Eliza resolutely, “by Providence, as the General likes to say.  It was the Divine Will that he live to be my husband, live to accomplish what he will in this life!”

“Perhaps,” said Ann, “but Providence was by no means the only force at work that day.  And Death would have claimed him, make no mistake, if I had not intervened.”

“You intervened?  Are you – are you trained in medicine?” asked Eliza dubiously.  Half-consciously she glanced indoors again and soon located Alexander’s medically-trained friend McHenry, happily engaged in a slightly ungainly dance with Peggy.  He might have saved her husband a few times himself with his medical knowledge.

“I struck a deal with Death,” replied Ann bluntly.

Eliza was frightened.  This strange woman with a flickering flame in her hand, talking about deals with Death!  “N-no no no, I- I can’t hear this, this is – this is unholy!”

“It’s hardly unholy, ma’am,” Ann reassured her calmly, “you forget that Death, too, is a servant of God.  One of His angels, who performs a very necessary duty.  And, if you like, it may well have been the Divine Will that I intervened.  You know He will use mankind to accomplish His ends.”

“If that is so,” said Eliza, allowing this sound argument to somewhat allay the edges of her pious misgivings, “if that is so, ma’am, what did you offer Death in exchange for my husband’s life?”

“My services,” she replied.

“Your services?”

“Services, yes, my dear, services!  That is not important to you!  That is my path now!  What is important is the flame!” The woman held the flame up more directly in front of Eliza, and they both gazed at it in wonder a moment.

“From whence – does it come?” asked Eliza after a moment.

“If you will believe it, my dear, from your husband’s very soul,” replied Ann.  “I must tell you how it was. Word reached me on the continent that my Aunt Rachel and her little boy were not long for this world.  Already Death circled the room where they lay expiring.  Soon he was taking my aunt’s soul away, soon closing in on that poor child, gasping in delirium and weeping for his mother . . .”

Her voice died a moment, remembering, and Eliza’s eyes shone with compassionate tears.  “I would not let it be,” said Ann firmly.  “The boy who had promised to change the world someday!  The boy who had shown me and his mother time and again he was capable of it!  The boy who so yearned to grow great in the world’s esteem, expiring on some obscure island as a mere child, never given his opportunity, never given an even chance!  Well, I would not stand for it, I _could_ not let it be – so I summoned Death to me, and I begged that the boy may live to be given that chance, to achieve all he envisioned.  Then I made my offer.”

“And he – he gave you this flame?” Eliza faltered.

“He flitted back to Alexander’s side a moment, and he – retrieved it.  Reached straight down and plucked it from little Alexander’s beating heart as he lay gasping.  ‘It lies in your hands now,’ he said as he gave the flame to me, ‘that this boy will live on to grow great in the world’s esteem.’  But you as a wife now have a greater claim on it than I.”

“What must I do?” asked Eliza decisively, her voice quite steady now. “I shall do it, for the love of him.”

From her pocket Ann withdrew a thin white candle, on which she now placed the flame in her palm. Then she took Eliza’s trembling hand and placed the candle in it.  “Keep it burning, my dear.  Keep Alexander’s flame alive.”

Eliza rejoined the crowd five minutes later with the candle in her hand.  Immediately, Alexander, who had been standing deep in conversation between Angelica and Peggy, bolted to her side and seized her by her empty hand.  “There you are, my dear!  Not sneaking away to repent your vows already, I hope?”

Eliza tried to smile, and to reply, “No indeed!” but somehow could not manage the full effect.  All she could think as she looked at her husband was what a miracle it was he was even still alive.

“But you look so pale, my love!” Alexander observed, his eyes growing concerned.  “You haven’t had nearly enough wine!  Come, a toast!”  He seized a glass and thrust it into her hand, and then raised his glass and called for quiet in an instant.  “To my wife, Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, best of women I have ever known, and who will no doubt prove the best of wives who ever lived!”

Everyone cheered for her and raised their glasses and her heart began to ease as she laughed in embarrassment and buried her face in her hands.

“Ah, _there’s_ your color,” said Alexander playfully, “those dear maiden blushes!  But you must forget them now, my Eliza, for you are a maiden no longer!”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry this took a while. Life is unpredictable and a little aimless, and staying focused is a challenge. Enjoy!

Eliza kept the candle beside her bed; Alexander didn’t seem to mind a single light flickering all through the night, and after too few nights together he was back to war and gone from her sight in any case.  While Peggy and the rest of the house tried to keep her mind off her husband’s danger, their design was ultimately doomed to failure.  Eliza found herself returning to their bedroom, all times of the day, to pray over the candle again.

            The candle never seemed to melt or diminish no matter how long the flame burned, though the flame itself would sometimes ebb and flow from a tiny spark to a strong bright blaze. And when she discovered she was with child, her prayers only became more frequent and more desperate.  Most of the time she was pleading with God, but odd times she found she was trying to speak to Alexander directly.  More and more her tears fell around it, more and more time she spent muttering over her burning light, her one link to husband’s heart and soul.  “Return to me,” she pleaded, “and our child – please, my dear – please _stay alive._ ”

            Her voice turned, with no deliberate intention, to song.  She sang over the candle and it seemed to blaze brighter with the rise of her voice, so she sang on.  She sang to God, she sang to Alexander, she even sang to Death – but the message was all one.

            After many days of this, Death grew impatient of the noise and came to speak to her, drifting straight into the room without using any door.  He did not look much like what she had ever imagined of Death – in fact, after he left, she found he could not describe very well what he looked like at all – but some part of her knew inherently who he was the moment he came through the door.  She trembled all over to know, but she did her best to speak calmly.

            “If you are Death,” she said, “you are not welcome here.”

            “Death is indifferent to his welcome,” said Death disdainfully.  “I came to see the newest keeper of the flame who has been disrupting my work with her endless songs.”

            “If my songs have prevented your claiming my husband’s soul, I will be ever grateful that I sang them,” replied Eliza, her knuckles white.

            “If you must know, I’ve had no intention of claiming your husband since the flame passed into your hands, madam,” said Death.  “The General, it is told, likes to keep your husband from the heart of the danger.  Therefore be at peace and disturb me no further with your songs, for I am very busy, you know, especially in wartime.”

            “Surely you’ve heard many voices in prayer for soldiers’ lives,” Eliza said.  “Why should you hear only mine?”

            “The flame, my lady, the flame I extracted from your husband – it binds me to your husband, and by extension, since you are its keeper, to you.  So your voice I hear constantly and I cannot shut it out.”

            “Perhaps,” said Eliza shrewdly, “I would not need to sing if I could but extract a promise from you, to keep away from my Alexander.”

            “That I cannot do, madam,” said Death impassively.  “Death doesn’t discriminate.  More accurately, _cannot_.”

            “But Ann made a deal with you, to spare his life!”

            “And the deal is contingent on the flame, my dear!  If the flame stops burning, if your husband dies in oblivion, then she is out of the bargain, too.  You, its keeper, decide the fate of the flame and how long and brightly in shall burn.”

            “Then it shall burn for all time!” Eliza said stubbornly. “It shall burn throughout the ages!  And you shall not know my husband as long as I live!”  She spoke with such passion she suddenly felt faint, and clutching at her belly she sunk down swiftly to sit on the bed.

            “Do have a care for that boy,” said Death, almost kindly, with a look of – what was it? Regret?

            “Boy?” Eliza panted quizzically, after catching her breath a moment, stroking her belly.

            “I guarantee,” said Death in the same subdued voice, “I see his soul already, bound on its journey.  A very ardent and lively soul, madam, if you’ll allow it – so much like his father’s.”

            Eliza looked at Death more and more wonderingly.

            “Yes, madam,” he said, “I think you’ll find that your husband and I are very well acquainted already.  Some men, I find, grow timid seeing me so often – but your husband only grows more determined to defy me, and never to live in fear of me.”

            Eliza stood again, nodding, determined not to show him how much she wished he would sometimes.  “He is a brave man.  He has overcome you time and again, and mustered your power for his own against his enemies. He has no reason to fear you.  All the more reason I must sing to preserve him by Providence, if he will not act to preserve himself.”

            Death regarded her almost with a smile. “If that is your resolve, madam, it seems I cannot deter you.  So I bid you good day, as I go to collect this day’s harvest.” And on his last word he was gone, as quickly as he had come.

            Alexander returned to her not many days later, looking small, weary, and ashamed as she’d imagined from the flame flickering so low – he was ruined.  At the sight of her rounded womb he nearly wept, the brash confidence of his courtship gone entirely – replaced by a raw, terrible fear that in his position now he would ruin her and their child, that in his reckless passion for her, he’d somehow deceived her and trapped her in a marriage she must now repent.

            “All you offered me was yourself, Alexander: your love,” she tried to reassure him, “and that will ever and always be enough.”  He still looked unconvinced.  “We shall be a family – a proper family, you and I and our son.  He shall have your spirit, my love.”

            “As long as he has your kindness,” returned Alexander, returning her smile weakly.

            Peggy came in next moment, announcing herself with a joyous shout of “You stayed alive!”  Alexander put on a smile only Eliza could see was strained, and rushed to embrace his favorite little sister.

            It was not until they were curled together that night, Alexander’s arms securely around her and his hand resting protectively on her womb, that he thought to ask, “By the by, my love, how _do_ you know he shall be a boy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really really do love comments. They fuel me, inspire me. So if you could take a minute to leave your thoughts I'd be ever-so-grateful! Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> I had a strange idea and I ran with it. And I have strange fixation on including Ann Mitchell in my Hamilton fics, no matter how strange her role is. It was originally going to be published all at once, without chapters, but I got a little stuck and needed to get something out. There should be enough stuff for at least one more chapter before the point I got stuck, so hopefully THIS I can keep consistent!
> 
> Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed! Let me know what you think! :)


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